Even with sorting by the homeowner (replacing cheap labor with very expensive labor) it cannot break even.
What good is it?
They view the extra cost as a moral good. The purpose of recycling isn’t to save money and when confronted with the reality that recycling uses more resources, especially money, it is still viewed as the moral thing to do.
People don’t understand where water comes from anymore than they do electricity. Brains melt when you tell a Progressive Marxist that washing items for recycling is worse for the environment than landfills or incinerators.
It really is about feeling good than doing good. The sad thing is that they feel good by forcing other people to practice Progressive Marxism.
Re-cycling is energy upside down, always has been always will be.
There are a few cases where items can be burned for fuel (like paper waste etc) and you are somewhat energy positive but those cases are few.
On the other hand, if we had too cheap to meter electricity from say nuclear fusion, then we could consume all the energy needed to recycle garbage into valuable source material. Some might view that as wasted energy, some as a moral good.
The concept originates from way back in time, perhaps from pre-history. Albeit without the understanding that it is a net energy loser. Nobody heats their home with alchemy as far as I am aware.
Next up: Electric vehicles
Recycling will happen when it makes sense. I don’t have to convince people to recycle steel, aluminum or copper. The recycling company checks takes care of that.
Nothing new here. Back in the mid-1970s, Midwest highschool clubs would use “paper drives” as a way to makes some money. You’d get a shipping container and spend a couple of weeks filling it with old newspapers (pulp, not glossy magazines) and get a check for your efforts. Your neighbors would save up all their old newspapers knowing some kids would want them, eventually.
That all went away by the end of the decade when paper recycling became mandatory in places and the price of waste newsprint went negative.
The list of things Prince William County, VA (where I live) won’t take for recycling is large, and growing. A couple of years ago, they stopped taking glass, because of insufficient demand for the repurposed material, and cost ineffectiveness in processing it into new glass items compared to getting more sand and melting it. They won’t take plastic bags, or paper from a shredder – both clog up the sorting machines.
Sending recycling to Southeast Asia used to be cost effective, when ultra-cheap labor was available to do the sorting. But those countries ran into another problem: recyclable items had to be washed. Not enough clean water was available, and effluent from the washing was polluting streams to the point where it was killing fish. Not very green. Those countries stopped taking our waste.
I’m not sure it has ever really been about recycling in and of itself. I grew up with Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, though that is now five Rs with the addition of Reclaim and Refuse. For me, Refuse is the most important one. Refuse plastic bags when offered. Refuse products in wasteful packaging. Refuse to buy what you don’t need.
The strategy is more than just recycling, but also reducing the need for recycling in the first place. It’s also about the balance between (re)using what we’ve already wrested from the Earth for our benefit, and tearing up the Earth some more to get new stocks because our prior investment in infrastructure and systems makes it cheaper to do it that way. That balance is not static, but frankly I’d rather we pivoted to space-sourced resources so that we can start returning more land to natural environments that benefit more than just humans.
Commie plastic bag bans suck. They just punish innocent people and don’t solve the problems used to justify them. The eco fascists are always forcing their primitive neo paganism on everyone. Its getting old.
Even with sorting by the homeowner (replacing cheap labor with very expensive labor) it cannot break even.
What good is it?
They view the extra cost as a moral good. The purpose of recycling isn’t to save money and when confronted with the reality that recycling uses more resources, especially money, it is still viewed as the moral thing to do.
People don’t understand where water comes from anymore than they do electricity. Brains melt when you tell a Progressive Marxist that washing items for recycling is worse for the environment than landfills or incinerators.
It really is about feeling good than doing good. The sad thing is that they feel good by forcing other people to practice Progressive Marxism.
Re-cycling is energy upside down, always has been always will be.
There are a few cases where items can be burned for fuel (like paper waste etc) and you are somewhat energy positive but those cases are few.
On the other hand, if we had too cheap to meter electricity from say nuclear fusion, then we could consume all the energy needed to recycle garbage into valuable source material. Some might view that as wasted energy, some as a moral good.
The concept originates from way back in time, perhaps from pre-history. Albeit without the understanding that it is a net energy loser. Nobody heats their home with alchemy as far as I am aware.
Next up: Electric vehicles
Recycling will happen when it makes sense. I don’t have to convince people to recycle steel, aluminum or copper. The recycling company checks takes care of that.
Nothing new here. Back in the mid-1970s, Midwest highschool clubs would use “paper drives” as a way to makes some money. You’d get a shipping container and spend a couple of weeks filling it with old newspapers (pulp, not glossy magazines) and get a check for your efforts. Your neighbors would save up all their old newspapers knowing some kids would want them, eventually.
That all went away by the end of the decade when paper recycling became mandatory in places and the price of waste newsprint went negative.
The list of things Prince William County, VA (where I live) won’t take for recycling is large, and growing. A couple of years ago, they stopped taking glass, because of insufficient demand for the repurposed material, and cost ineffectiveness in processing it into new glass items compared to getting more sand and melting it. They won’t take plastic bags, or paper from a shredder – both clog up the sorting machines.
Sending recycling to Southeast Asia used to be cost effective, when ultra-cheap labor was available to do the sorting. But those countries ran into another problem: recyclable items had to be washed. Not enough clean water was available, and effluent from the washing was polluting streams to the point where it was killing fish. Not very green. Those countries stopped taking our waste.
I’m not sure it has ever really been about recycling in and of itself. I grew up with Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, though that is now five Rs with the addition of Reclaim and Refuse. For me, Refuse is the most important one. Refuse plastic bags when offered. Refuse products in wasteful packaging. Refuse to buy what you don’t need.
The strategy is more than just recycling, but also reducing the need for recycling in the first place. It’s also about the balance between (re)using what we’ve already wrested from the Earth for our benefit, and tearing up the Earth some more to get new stocks because our prior investment in infrastructure and systems makes it cheaper to do it that way. That balance is not static, but frankly I’d rather we pivoted to space-sourced resources so that we can start returning more land to natural environments that benefit more than just humans.
Commie plastic bag bans suck. They just punish innocent people and don’t solve the problems used to justify them. The eco fascists are always forcing their primitive neo paganism on everyone. Its getting old.